128 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



■170. Tho sole instance of the actual extormination of an animal of 

 the North Paeitic within historic times, and one of the very sliort list 

 of such eases of extermination the world over, is that of tlie Khytina 

 or iSteller's sea-cow ( Hlnjilna iStcUcri). It is instructive to allude to this 

 instanc^e, because it beeonies obvious that it was entirely owing' to the 

 great ditlerences in habits and the very restricted range of the animal, 

 as com])ared with the fur-seal, that its extermination became possible. 



471. This sea cow or manat c was found in great numbers on Behring 

 Island, and to some extent also on Coi)per Island, at the time of the 

 discovery of these islands in 1741, but scarcely, if at all, elsewhere; 

 though NordenskiOld conjectures that it may within historic times have 

 also occassionally visited the Kamsehatkau coast. 



•171*. It was a large, slow, clumsy, and incautious animal, which fed 

 chietly along the shores ujjou marine algie; and being found easy of 

 capture and good for food was persistently attacked by the early ihis- 

 sian navigators, who often visited Behring Island for the sole purpose 

 of laying in a stock of its tlesli. From the accounts of these voyages, 

 it seems first to have disappeared from Co])i)er Island, and subse- 

 (piently, about 170S, less than thirty years after the discovery of the 

 islands, it becanu* extinct, also on Behring Island.* 



473. It is stated that Br;indt exjuesses the belief that the lihytina 

 formerly, and in pre historic times, not only frequented the coast of 

 Kamsehatka, but extended also as far as the coasts of China and the 

 northern islands of the Japanese group, and to the western islands of 

 the Aleutian chain. It thus appears to have already been naturally 

 verging towards extinction before it was at all pursued by man. In a 

 ])aiter read betbre the Kussian Imperial Cicographical Society in March 

 1884, Dr. Dibofsky expresses a similar o])inion. Mr. F. W. True writes 

 as follows respecting the causes of its extinction: '-The nu)st generally 

 accei)ted notion is that the rate of capture nuich exceeded that of the 

 increase of the animal, and that extinction followed as a matter of 

 course. Xindenskiold, however, and in a certain Avay Brandt, also 

 avows his belief that the sea-cow had gotten out of harnu)ny with its 

 environment many years before the Kussians discovered it, and that 

 its extermination would have occurred Mithin a com])aratively short 

 time Avithout the intervention of man. The fact that in Steller's time 

 the range of the animal was much circumscribed seems to give weight 

 to the latter view." t 



84 (S.) — Breeding FJaccs and Besorts of the Fur-seal on the Western 

 iSide of the ^'orth Faeific. 



474. The pursuit of the fur-seal on the western or Asiatic portion of 

 the Xorth l^u'itic, alVords much e\idence Acry directly alfecting the con- 

 ditions and i)rospects of the seal tishery ui the eastern waters of that 

 ocean, altogether apart from the question tis to how far the territorial 

 Powers of these Asiatic waters, viz., Eussia, Japan, and China, nuiy 

 desire to participate in any general regulations tending to the preser- 

 vation of so old-established, important, and useful an industry. 



* Baron Nordeuskiold found some reason to believe tlijit a single individual of the 

 sea-cow Avas seen as late as the yt-av IS54, but Dr. L. Stt\ineoer, lirst in the " Pro- 

 ceediugs of the Tnited States National Musoum," vol. vii, 1881, ]). 181. and at later 

 dates in the "Auierieau N;itur;ilist,'' vol. xxi, p. 1047, and " Auicrican Geographical 

 Society Bullotiu," No. 4, 188ii, has advanced strong reasons to show that the animal 

 actually became cxtiuct in 17G8. 



t " rishory Industries of the United States," vol. i, p. 135. See also Nordenskiold's 

 " Voyage of the >'uga," vol. ii. 



